Eating for Sustainability: An Experiment Pt. 2

Last week I embarked on an adventure to track food expenses and cooking habits to see if I can cut costs while increasing consumption of local and organic food. My focus this week has largely been to use up as much perishable food already in my house as possible. Next week, the focus will shift to more accurately tracking expenses.

After some good math and some guessing, $170 is a rough estimate for last week's grocery costs.  That number seems low, and two dinners and a lunch out of the house may have factored into that. But I wonder--did simply declaring publicly my desire to cut food costs lead to less waste? I just read that Americans throw away 40% of their food on average, so I have to think that's possible. One thing's for sure--I dug deep in the crisper drawers this week because I did not want to have to report a higher cost this week than I originally estimated in part one of this series!

So...what did we eat this week?  Well, here's what we received from the CSA, and a good portion of it is gone already.

Acorn squash, blueberry jam, bagels, onions, mushrooms, eggs, popcorn, carrots, breakfast sausage, and chevre

Our meals broke down like this--

Breakfasts: Cereal, toast, oatmeal (nothing organic 'cept the milk, but all pretty healthy)

Lunches:

• Weekdays I eat leftovers and bits of whatever is in the fridge. I pack my youngest kiddo's lunches most days (sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, or leftover soups generally). I don't even want to think about what my high schooler eats everyday at school. Last I checked, it was toasted ravioli. Every. Day. Awesome. And my husband? I am pretty sure he eats lunch most days.
• This weekend for lunch we just snacked. Cheese, salami, fruit, peanut butter...can't remember but I know I didn't cook. It was great.

Dinners:

• A traditional lasagna, conventional in every way, including the ground beef. It was already cooked and half-eaten when the intention to eat better on less was declared. It stinks that the kids' favorite meal of the week is the one that I'm sort of embarrassed to record.
• Breakfast for dinner--95% of items from the CSA. 

  

  Spinach mushroom frittata

  

  

•  Spinach salad  + roasted root vegetables from the CSA. That was so yum. Except for the radishes--roasting was a last-ditch attempt to enjoy eating a radish. Still no luck. I really wish I thought to take a pic of this dinner. Much prettier than the breakfast!

• White Bean and Rosemary Soup and Homemade Whole Wheat Bread. The soup was a surprise hit--the kids even chose it on leftover night over quesadillas! The bread tasted great, but it cost about $4 to make. I thought homemade bread would be so much cheaper. Next recipe, please. On leftover night, we concocted a dessert that encapsulates the way we eat right now--a blend of hyper-local and completely conventional. We made apple-pear turnovers using store-bought pie crust filled with homemade apple-pear butter from my friend's bumper crop this summer. 

So there you have it. Week one of the experiment is over. I'm happy to report that we ate well, wasted little, and I know the contents of my refrigerator better than I have in a long time.